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Friday, October 24, 2014

UK: Ukip defends link to extremist Polish party

Ukip has defended its European Parliament alliance with a member of a party whose leader questions the Holocaust and makes racist slurs.

The British party admitted Polish MEP Robert Iwaszkiewicz was an "odd bedfellow" following his recruitment this week, but said it was necessary to work with him.

Ukip leader Nigel Farage said he had found "nothing in this guy's background to suggest he is a political extremist at all" and dismissed comments Mr Iwaszkiewicz reportedly made about wife-beating as "a joke".

Mr Iwaszkiewicz is a member of the Congress of the New Right, whose leader, Janusz Korwin-Mikke, is reported to have said that Hitler was unaware of the Holocaust.

Korwin-Mikke has previously spoken of a "Holocaust industry" and made offensive remarks about black Americans and rape. He also called Jews "our worst enemies".